Plan for Restoring America’s Future

Washington has a spending problem that has placed our nation on an
unsustainable path of trillion dollar deficits and a $22 trillion
national debt. That is why I would vote to limit federal
spending, reform entitlement programs, and would co-sponsor of a bill
that calls for the passage of the balanced budget amendment. Thanks to
the Republican majority in the House, they have been able to hold the line
of federal spending, putting total expenditures on a slightly downward
path. I would continue to support the holding down federal spending.

Declines of total federal expenditures for the past two fiscal
years are the first back-to-back annual spending reductions since the
Korean War. While these reductions in spending are important, we still
have a long way to go.

In 2009 and 2010, when Democrats had control of both the House of
Representatives and the Senate, the federal government went on a
spending binge. Through an $831 billion stimulus package, ObamaCare, and
Dodd-Frank, Democrats dedicated themselves to more federal spending and
increased government interference in the private sector. In 2009, the
federal government spent $3.77 trillion and ran a $1.5 trillion deficit,
both of which were the largest of all time. The federal government
spent $3.67 trillion in 2010 and $3.75 trillion in 2011 and added an
additional $2.7 trillion to the national debt.

In 2010, The Republicans lead to take back the House and
halt this spending spree. Because of the leadership of the
National Republican Congressional Committee, Republicans elected 89
freshman Members of Congress and switched 63 Democrat-held seats to the
Republican column.

Republicans quickly went to work reining in federal
spending after removing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. To begin,
House Republicans forced a virtual freeze in the growth of federal
spending. Total spending by the federal government is now growing by
the slowest amount annually in over sixty years. I would support slowing down even more the spending in Washington, there are more items that could be trimmed especially in the ear marks attached to nearly every bill.

Since Republicans took back control of the House. While our annual spending is still
too high, thanks to House Republicans the federal government is spending
$317 billion a year less than it was in 2009. I would continue to support the STOP THE SPENDING IN WASHINGTON.

In this Congress, I would support Rep. Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity
Budget, which would have balanced the budget within 10 years, reformed
the tax code, and taken our country off a path of fiscal insolvency and
onto a path towards fiscal success. This budget would also take smart
and responsible steps to reform our entitlement programs. I will bring back “No
Budget, No Pay” legislation that forced all to pass a
budget or else have their pay withheld.

While the new Republican majority has succeeded in capping federal
spending, Congress must continue to take even more steps to control
unsustainable deficits, which, if left unchecked, will place too much of
a burden on future generations of Americans. That is why I remain fully
committed to taking the important steps toward fiscal reform and
additional spending cuts in order to get our fiscal house in order.

Since losing their majority, House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi,
have argued for alternative spending plans that would have added
trillions to the national debt. Their plan is no plan at all. In every
situation and in every piece of legislation brought to the House floor
(except for national defense), their “solution” is to spend more
taxpayer money and move our nation closer to bankruptcy.

Nancy Pelosi today makes the absurd claim that “the cupboard is bare”
for any additional cuts in federal spending. In the meantime, thanks to
House Republicans and the leadership of Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma,
the General Accounting Office has documented that the federal
government could save $125 billion (billion!) if we stopped making
public assistance payments to Americans who are not eligible under the
law. Food stamp fraud amounts to billions of dollars every year and the
Social Security Disability system appears to have been hijacked by trial
attorneys who successfully obtain benefits for Americans who are not
disabled and do not deserve disability payments. Welfare fraud is another area where billions could be saved.

There is a moral component to the Democrats’ constant argument for
more government spending which cannot go unaddressed. If we all know
that it is wrong to steal, then how can we condone stealing from future
generations? If left unchecked, that is exactly what we are doing, led
by this generation of Democrats.

The unsustainability of today’s national debt and federal unfunded
obligations is reaching a critical tipping point. Financial experts such
as Mary Meeker and Stan Druckenmiller have documented that if the
United States were a business, we would be broke due to our future
obligated payments on the debt. Today’s entitlement programs are so
over-committed that in order to meet the current payouts obligated to
the Baby-Boomer generation, our children may have to pay as much as 80
percent of their incomes in taxes if the U.S. is ever to balance its
budget. And this is where I differ, Social Security is not an entitlement it is a debt owed to us by the Government, while welfare is an entitlement (the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment). Welfare should be dismantled and the funds directed to Social Security payment increases, and to our veterans programs.

What kind of future are we passing on to our children if we have so
loaded down their lives to burdensome debt? This scenario of one
irresponsible political class obligating future generations to debt,
which they cannot afford, has been recently played out in Greece, Spain
and, soon, Italy and France. In all of those countries, those younger
than 30 are in despair with no real prospects for their most productive
years because their countries are bankrupt. Their only option is to be
on welfare for the rest of their lives or leave the nation of their
birth.

The summary of Druckenmiller and Meeker’s analysis are the same as
what Republicans, led by Paul Ryan on the budget, have made for years on
the House floor. The federal government cannot continue to spend
hundreds of billions more than it receives in taxes every year.

We
cannot burden future generations with trillions of dollars of debt and
economic history shows that economies whose central governments owe as
much as the economy produces in annual output are destined to
permanently slow job growth. In cases where governments never bring
their budget deficits into balance, they run the risk of sudden and
dramatic currency devaluations, which has occurred in Argentina, Mexico
and, likely soon, Venezuela. In all of these cases, savings of working
families were obliterated by their governments.

I am committed to avoiding this same fate for my children and yours.
The only responsible step is to bring federal spending under control by
limiting future increases, immediately reforming entitlement programs,
and quickly eradicating the federal budget with its current unacceptable
levels of waste, fraud, and abuse.